BusinessWeek Discovers Emerging Markets

Bloomberg’s art market coverage is exceptional but somehow its partner publication, BusinessWeek, didn’t get briefed before running this odd story. Would you believe that Christie’s has Chinese-speaking staff members? And everyone sells art from places like Latin America and Asia? Apparently Phillips de Pury’s publicists deserve a raise because Bloomberg BusinessWeek thinks BRIC is an accepted collecting category:

The value of pieces from Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the so-called BRIC countries, has skyrocketed in recent years, mirroring each country’s economic growth. Auction houses have helped feed the frenzy by extracting BRIC art from their other categories, hosting specialized sales designed to spark the patriotism of the BRIC nouveau riche. Sotheby’s has more than doubled its BRIC-oriented offerings in the past decade. Christie’s, which says it has Chinese-speaking staff members at all its auction houses, has also significantly upped its collection. In April, Phillips de Pury held the first auction dedicated exclusively to art from all four BRIC nations, bringing in nearly $11 million. Another BRIC auction is scheduled for next April in London. […]

In the following two months both Sotheby’s and Christie’s will host a string of auctions in New York and London dedicated to Latin American, Russian, Indian, and Chinese art. Sotheby’s anticipates generating more than $23 million in sales from Asia Week alone (up $4 million from last year). Christie’s expects about $56 million, up more than $19 million from 2009.

The story goes on to tell us that Subodh Gupta hopes to follow in the footsteps of his wife Bharti Kher and achieve success at auction during the September sales. We wish him luck.